Quietly delighted to have an image of mine featured in the latest issue of Paragraph Shorts [Issue 61]. I say quietly, as the associated remuneration rolls through my financial world like an apparition of tumbleweed. But maybe association with the great and the good will rub off kindly, unlike the love-heart drawn upon my hand by my childhood first love in blue biro; I didn’t wash my hand for over a week, until it slowly faded, like her love for me…
Huh? Oh, yeah, I digress!
Paragraph Shorts is a free app associated with the iPad and iPad mini: “...brings you the world’s best short stories in text, audio and video. Each issue features some of the most captivating storytellers from the most interesting literary publications, coupled with moving imagery from amazing photographers and artists.”
My image has been used alongside the story The Gypsy Chooses the Whatever Card by acclaimed American short story writer and novelist, Ann Beattie.
Somewhat ironically, I haven’t actually seen Issue 61 in all its intended glory, as I don’t possess an iPad. Uh, despite my apparent moving imagery and amazingness abilities, I am confined by my school issue Asus MeMo android tablet and the sense of a world tantalisingly out of reach. But the kindly folk at Paragraph Shorts have sent me a couple of screenshots, so I can dream over the horizon:
More news soon on my follow-up to last year’s Retrospective shows at Rubicon and Rubicon Too. [The latter premises is now being redeveloped and expanded; set to open again in May with around three times the gallery wall space. Owner, Umut, has asked me to consider being a part of the opening exhibition. Watch this space.]
Here we are in the balmy heat and humidity of midsummer England … and for the first time since the summer of 2006 the yellow blinding thingy shines hotly for more than the occasional morning or otherwise seasonally confused October afternoon. I’ve even released my biggest fan from its shackles inside the dusty box shoved to the back of the wardrobe! [I should probably clarify: that’s not a significant fan of my photography who came to visit me and inadvertently ended up being shoved inside a cardboard box and hidden in my wardrobe for 7 years, it’s the big blowy, air movement kind. Clearly I wouldn’t keep people in the back of my wardrobe. Not after last time, anyway.]
Well, as you can see the heat is affecting my mind quite badly, but on the plus side my first solo exhibition at Rubicon was so well received, it’s run was extended for two weeks and has now been moved to Rubicon Too for a further month.
Reflecting : The Artist
Rubicon Too is the latest tastiest eatery to be opened by Umut [my biggest fan – uh, not that one!] and I was delighted to move my work there just over a week ago. The layout is a little different, so the show doesn’t hang together quite as well as it did at Rubicon. And four of the images are consigned to the basement on the way to the toilet… uh, but it’s a nice toilet. Either way, the contrast from having an image in Tate Modern and Tate Britain in the balmy [less] summer of 2008 is a shift of prestige not entirely lost on me: from Tate Britain to a toilet in Clifton in five short years. Where did it all go right, indeed? Ha!
The Wildlife Cameraman Cometh
And finally, for this overdue blog update, here’s a smile-inducing slice of summer from my own back garden filmed this very morning. Maybe there’s a future for me as a wildlife cameraman, yet? [Oh, and don’t worry, although of questionable quality it’s very short – mainly thanks to my deeply inadequate equipment. Uh, please stop making your own jokes at the back!]
Consumed by summer heat, deep in the ivy something stirs…
Note: I’m available for voice-over work for Farmers’ Weekly and other West Country agricultural language bias; walk on parts with minimal lines [due to poor memory retention] will be strongly considered for all major television or film dramas requiring a yokel; and, with Rubicon Too being just a stone’s throw from the world renowned BBC Natural History Unit, quite possibly a shoe-in as the replacement for David Attenborough.
First up: I’ve been organizing my first solo photography exhibition. And I hadn’t quite realised, when supplying everything but the walls, everything can be quite a lot of work! I just about made it – hanging the ten images last night. Time to breathe. Hopefully you’ll all now be booking flights from the four corners of the world for this must see event. Ahem.
Anyhoo… If any of you good [local] folk should head this way, feel free to give me the heads up, and I’ll do my utmost to meet you there. Coffees* are on you! Uh, call it your entrance fee and having the sheer pleasure of my company. Think of me as your photographic pim… uh, escort.
* Oh, yeah, that’s the bonus. Rubicon is a lounge café and chocolatiers. So you can easily be distracted from both my company and images with even more delicious distractible culinary treats.
The Anatomy Of A Stroke [One Year Plus]
Remarkably… we were both clean shaven for the occasion!
When I began the project documenting my father’s battle with his stroke, clearly I had no idea where fate and circumstance might lead us. In my opening public comments I essentially concluded my introduction of the documentary with “…and for what I ultimately truly hope will be an uplifting journey to recovery.” Even when I wrote those words, I wasn’t fully aware, having survived the initial dramatic stroke, how the odds were stacked against him.
Happily, for those who followed the unfolding story, you’ll know that my father was lucky to fall into the third of people having such an event who subsequently go on to make a good recovery.
Once again, thanks for all your support through this difficult period in my/our family’s life. I had mixed feelings about making this public, but I was genuinely overwhelmed by those who took the time to write and offer their support and prayers, etc.
And special thanks to John, Alison, Claudio, Tracie, Louise, Kyre, Chris, Sharon, Hameed, Alex, Robert, Dawn, Jen and Giuliana for taking the time to ask some really quite probing questions, and allowing this to have an ideal completion.
Skydiving, food poisoning and photographic exhibitions.
You should always be prepared to try something new. As I get older and wiser [it’s all relative], the phrase: The Bucket List looms ever more prominently. Especially when a new Instagram friend of mine [‘Hello, Claire’] crosses off two from her/my[!] list in one go:
1. New Zealand
2. Skydiving
…and she’s barely 20-something! When did 20-somethings begin bucket lists? I must’ve missed that memo 20+ years ago! Now I find myself in a race against time. [Well, when compared to Claire, certainly!] So, this week I attempted to remove something memorable from my list. Both of the above are quite near the top of mine. Much further down, at No.197, is Self-Inflicted Food Poisoning. It wasn’t until later, when I looked at my list more carefully, I realised I’d actually been looking at the wrong one; I’d actually been reading the companion list I made due to my deeply inadequate pension provision: the How To Kick The Bucket List. [No.1 One way ticket to Switzerland for lovely fresh snow, excellent chocolates and the clinic.]
Note: This bucket doesn’t appear in my earlier blog: To Pee Or Not To Pee… it’s merely your warped imagination
My wonderful wife and gifted cook went to London for a couple of days. The ingredients for the feast were inadvertently set. Simply add me and some haphazardly prepared chicken breast fillet, thawed from frozen, leaking more juice than a bulging melon suffering water retention.
The stomach pain began later that evening. By morning my body was wracked with pain through every sinew, rolling its eyes at itself with hands on hips wagging an accusing finger as it began the arduous task of expelling the invader from all available, umm, ports.
It must be said, the human body can be a wholly remarkable thing in the face of adversity, or even idiocy, given the chance. Essentially sidelined by its impressive intervention, I was a mere spectator. I just wish I could’ve also been stood a bit further back. Instead, it dragged me along too, out onto the high seas in a Force 9, breached above and below decks for close on 48 hours. It wasn’t pretty out there, but we finally made it back to the harbour, an arm draped around each other’s shoulder, feeling like we’ve learned something from the experience. We’ve really bonded, and forgiven ourselves, especially since all the leaking stopped.
The moral of this story? If ever I invite you around a for a chicken dinner… wear a disappointed expression and a hazmat suit bearing the logo Nil By Mouth.
Exhibitions
Altogether a more satisfying Show Of Myself. I was really delighted to have another image in the latest MA Doran Gallery exhibition Valentine’s Group Show 2013, deepening and/or broadening my metaphorical American footprint. And I can now also confirm my involvement in F-Number at The Grant Bradley Gallery, which opens with a Private View on Friday 8th March 6 – 9pm, then runs until the end of the month.
Well, here we are in the foothills of 2013, so I thought I’d have a swift and fond look back at the year that was and highlight a sprinkling of exciting early 2013 news, too.
Regular readers of my blog [well, both of you] will know that 2012 was undoubtedly my most creatively rewarding year, with my work featuring in 5 different exhibitions and galleries both nationally and internationally. It’s never easy to predict what any new year will bring, but my goal will simply be to maintain the momentum that a wonderful 2012 afforded me. And I’d like to especially thank everyone who has supported me along the way. Making images can be a relatively insular activity, but to have them step out of the digital darkroom and into the light often takes the considerable support of like minds. So, thanks to every encouraging one of you that I’ve met along the way, both physically and virtually.
So, That Was 2012
On reflection, though, 2012 was a slightly curious one, for my photography … a year, while exceptionally rewarding – Oklahoma being the pinnacle with its adventure, press and television coverage – with the majority of that work stemming from images produced prior to 2012, and the production of that exhibition with Michelle itself being time consuming, and hurling in some significant life events and major computer headaches, I don’t feel like I’ve produced a great deal this past 12 months. And as the central image up there might suggest, many might be excused for believing that, in terms of new visual production, I’ve mostly been sleeping!
2013 has been similarly unkind in life events, so far – with the end of the year and January bringing two surprise and shocking deaths of close friends of my wife’s and a very good friend of my own now fighting breast cancer. But I’m hoping that these events can consciously conspire to motivate me and shine a magnifying glass on now, because if there’s anything this past month has illustrated all to graphically, now is all we have.
In Praise Of Trees
In Praise Of Trees : In praise of the emotional pull of the seasons. The heartbeat. The melancholy sadness of winter. Waiting. Pausing for breath. Before spring delivers renewal. The promise of things to come. But a tree never forgets. It stands witness to a lifetime of memories.
In Praise Of Trees is an image from my relatively new Instagram account. I recently upgraded my phone to a Samsung Galaxy Ace 2. My first smartphone. So I’m using the Instagram account for words/images that flow through my day. [Some of the images are taken with the phone, some are older images previously unprocessed now cropped and processed within the phone.] The following composite image is from the end of last year when I was delighted to find one of these images had been featured on the wonderful Blipoint website:
2012 will also be mostly fondly recalled for the satisfaction of the near culmination of my most personal and emotional project: anatomyofastroke.tumblr.com/ and to have seen my father make a quite extraordinary physical recovery. [More on that soon. One year later. A Q&A session with questions supplied by my friends on the Flickr and a final image is planned. “I began documenting this journey for my own emotional release and peace of mind; as a record of progress in the challenge that undoubtedly lay ahead, for him; as an education for others; and for what I ultimately truly hope will be an uplifting journey to recovery.” It certainly proved to be an exceptionally challenging experience for my father and everyone around him.]
So, here we are in the foothills of 2013, and with two exhibitions ending in the past month or so, it felt like the year was set to start quietly. But during the past week I’ve been contacted by a gallery directly who want to feature me in a collection of 9 photographers from the region “…[in the] gallery’s first hand picked photography exhibition. Following on from recent successful open submission exhibitions where photography played a strong central role, the exhibition seeks to showcase top regional photographers engaged in the most creative applications of the medium.” Most notable as this will be the first exhibition where I’ve been simply asked to participate as a photographer – rather than have my images curated from a general submission. In the same week a further international exhibition has been mooted for some of the Where The Land Meets The Sea work with Michelle Firment Reid. And I’ve also been approached by a magazine to feature an image in their “…monthly collection of the world’s best short stories, curated from the likes of The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Moth, McSweeney’s and more… each issue pulls together some of the finest stories available and offers them to the reader alongside captivating imagery.” More flesh on these bones soon, and I’m hoping the latter doesn’t simple evolve into a mass trawling for free images. What is it about photography and free images? I can barely afford my existing gear, and certainly can’t afford any [no matter how desired] expansion… uh, but don’t get me started on that! Ahem.
Nige' Ollis 